How to Not Shoot a Deer

Rifle season just opened in Southern Humboldt, where my family lives. It’s a busy time of year with its own set of rituals, including taking advantage of our seasonal visitors by putting them to work helping mark calves. I was up until 11:30 last night skinning a buck, then up again at 5 because the dogs were sure something was creeping and crawling around the barnyard. Today I let the mama cows chase me around because we all need more exercise, and let Dad process my buck into smaller pieces because he’s better at it than I am. I’m tired. I’m sore. I got home at 3 p.m. with an aching back and blood caked under my fingernails, smelling like a combination of an abattoir and wet leather. The thing is, I’m usually so good at NOT getting a buck during hunting season. What happened? If you’re hoping to avoid a scenario which involves blood, ticks and figuring out 90 new recipes for venison, I have some tips for you.

1. Go alone. I’ve never had a successful hunt when going out alone. Unfortunately, last night I had my experienced older cousin and family friend with me, who I’m not going to name because he didn’t consent to being written about. Also, I’m worried that he’s going to be bombarded with requests from other people because he is really good at spotting deer and for whatever reason loves to take people hunting.

2. Take a dog. The Old Dog was not invited on this hunt, for reasons that should be clear to anyone who’s met him.

3. Try to look cool. In the steep ridgelands where I’m from, a successful hunt often depends on one’s ability to do the “creep and peep,” which means hunching down so a deer won’t see your head pop up over the horizon, waddling from a squat position to almost the top of the ridge then army crawling so you can ‘peep’ down at the treeline. If you don’t want to get a deer, I suggest walking normally and not finding out how out of shape you are.

4. Don’t look down. As I said, much of the time you’re going to see deer near the treeline, often under the oaks that climb the grassy golden hills in the late summer. I cannot overstate how steep most of these hills are. In recent years I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon with our hunting camp friends. The older they get, the less their eyeballs seem to be able to look downhill to where the likely bucks might be, bedded down at the bottom of gullies full of poison oak. I might be struggling with the onset of whatever eyeball arthritis this is myself, because when we had crept and peeped our way to the lip of a rocky ledge, I told my cousin, “I am not shooting anything down there.” He seemed a little nonplussed, but we duly made our way across the ridgeline, where it was equally steep but at least not rocky. If you want to avoid shooting a deer, I recommend looking up for ones that will roll themselves into the back of your truck only.

5. Share your thoughts. As you might imagine, you’re supposed to be on the quiet side when you’re trying to sneak up on a fleet forest creature with ears like satellite dishes. Experienced hunters frown on their companions sharing the contents of their hearts and minds during a hunt. Good hunters find that their minds are delightfully blank at times like these, as they creep their way through the tall grass, trying not to make every single leaf and twig crackle under their boots. Hunting is very meditative, very awe-inspiring. It was about an hour before dusk and a half-moon had hung itself on the horizon. I was feeling very happy about the whole experience, spending time with my family, breathing in the clean air, knowing that soon it would be too late to hunt and we’d go back to the house where I could drink some cold water and release the Old Dog from confinement. I knew my cousin did not want to hear me talk about it, which is a shame, because I was filled with that same kind of sweet buzzing joy and contentment you sometimes get on a long distance run or a particularly good karaoke night. Thinking, “I could do this forever. God I love this. I hope I get to do this every weekend for the rest of the season.” But then he spotted a buck, which was the beginning of the end.

6. Be prepared. I’ve heard that fortune both favors the bold, and the prepared, which leads me to believe nobody actually knows what fortune, aka luck, favors at all. What I will tell you is that hunting generally favors Murphy’s law, and therefore the less prepared you are the more likely you are to suffer the misfortune of shooting a deer. So I recommend bringing a sharp knife, more than one flashlight and some water. It’s a good idea to be hydrated when you’re not trying to gut out a deer at the bottom of a ridge in near dark. One of many the flashlights you should bring is a headlamp, because you want to be able to see the bottom of the ridge where you’re not going to be cursing at your dull knife around a tiny flashlight held between your teeth. Also I recommend staying in good physical shape throughout the year. Can you imagine army crawling to the edge of a rocky point to take aim at a perfectly nice buck, only to find out that holding yourself up to take a good shot requires core strength that you apparently do not have? I can!

So I managed to shoot a nice three by three, a fat fellow who was sitting with two others about halfway down the ridge. My very kind cousin helped me locate him and then went to get the side by side. I would add a few more tips about how having a vehicle with a winch will almost certainly guarantee not getting a deer, but I feel like I’m stealing the glory from my companion a little bit, who helped me stagger up the slippery grass in the dark with my kill, each of us holding an antler, huffing and puffing and occasionally falling down. The spit-covered flashlight died about halfway up the hill. My cousin also, with righteous but not disdainful impatience, did most of the skinning once we got back to the house, alongside my father. And I’m grateful. To him, to the deer that gave his young life to my bullet so I can bring meat to my family and my neighbors, and help me get through the oncoming winter. But most of all, I’m grateful that I only got one tag this year. Maybe I’ll still go out next weekend, not to hunt for myself, but to help out. I am really not that good at creeping, peeping, shooting or skinning, but I still feel I have a lot to offer by way of advice.

Getting Away from Getting Away from It All

I took off work on Wednesday and drove to the back of the ranch on our side by side, my senior dog riding shotgun and an embarrassing amount of supplies for an overnighter. (Two books, one magazine, one notebook.) Dad’s new pup decided to follow. She’s really less of a puppy than a lolloping adolescent of a dog, all long limbs and affection. I didn’t invite her, but she had a yen for adventure and I figured she’d be good for alerting me to critters. My plan was to set my mattress up on the west side of a meadow by an old barn where I could view as much of the horizon as possible. The Perseid meteor shower was predicted to peak at around 4 a.m.

I don’t want to give the impression that I’m the outdoorsy type per say, but I do camp solo a few times a year, and particularly enjoy camping in the open. It’s not restful but it’s weirdly comforting to wake up periodically at the sound of a mysterious rustle in the brush, identify it as a wandering deer or squirrel, then look up at the friendly stars and blink myself back to sleep.

I get into my sleeping bag at around 10 p.m. after trying and failing to identify some constellations. The old dog curls up next to me. He resents the puppy and did not enjoy sharing his kibble. I look again for Aquarius. A meteor streaks over a line of tall trees to the north of me. I smile. I sleep.

10:30 p.m. – The sound of an ATV and both dogs losing their minds. I jump up, grab my bear spray and shove my feet into my unlaced boots. It’s my little brother, who’s come to check on me. Our respective circadian rhythms have always been off beat. Also, he’s got a flat tire. I send him back to the cabin on my side-by-side to get the pump and sit back down in a chair. The pup, who I’ve had to restrain to keep her from going with him, finally settles in with a long sigh. A few more meteors pass.

11:30 p.m. – My brother returns after finding a bicycle pump. He pumps up the tire, but can’t fix the flat. So instead he replaces the tire. This is long past my bedtime and I am feeling grumpy. We talk about the Pup and how it’s probably good that she followed me, because the Old Dog can’t hear much these days. My brother asks if I have a gun. No, I have the bear spray, I tell him. Which will work fine for most critters if I point it in the right direction. Having grown up on a ranch, I can say with experience that you face less danger from mountain lions and bears — which are naturally shy when not habituated to humans — than you do angry mama cows. He capitulates and finally leaves, but not before I have to again restrain the disloyal puppy from following him. She makes her amends by plopping her head next to mine on the air mattress, looking at me with adoration. The Old Dog turns his back to us in disgust.

12:15 a.m. – I wake up to the sound of the puppy enthusiastically slorping at her belly. I push her away. I look up and see a meteor pass.

1:36 a.m. – I wake up to the sound of stealthy rustling, but not from the woods. It’s from the old barn, which is full of mice. Who are apparently making their way towards the box of food I’d stupidly left out. Both dogs snore, apparently unconcerned, as I hobble over in sock feet to safeguard the food. I get back into my bag with wet socks and stare at the sky, waiting for a streak of light, until I fall asleep.

1:45 a.m. – The world’s most persistent mosquito is fixated on the back of my left ear, where I apparently forgot to apply repellent. I burrow myself into my sleeping bag with a groan.

2:30 a.m. – The Pup alerts us to an animal intruder. I stick my head out of the sleeping bag to identify if it’s a threat requiring the bear spray and immediately realize my mistake. I had prepared for cougars and bears and coyotes: I did not think about skunks. Her job done, the puppy comes and lays her head adoringly next to mine. My wool cap, my pillow, the top of the sleeping bag, my headlamp. It all smells like skunk.

“Go. Away.” I tell the puppy. She nestles closer.

3:30 a.m. – I blearily look for meteors, seeing two or three before falling asleep again

When I wake up again it’s dawn. I’m ready to get away from getting away from it all.

How Not to Write a Novel, Part III: Make It Perfect

Thank you for your continued readership of my series on how to not write a novel. Whether you’re a bright young writer with your whole career ahead of you, or a frustrated old crank with several drafts in a desk drawer, I promise I can help you avoid ever finishing and publishing a novel. You can finds parts one and two of this series on my website, linked here.

I’ve written before about perfectionism and how it subverts my ability to finish things. I think it’s time to get down to some definitions, because in order to avoid becoming a novelist you must be determined to write the perfect novel. The perfect novel is not only well-written, it is also completely comprehensible to its audience. Its motivations are clear. It will wrap at the end like a good game of solitaire, each card of each suite tucking themselves neatly into order, leaving the reader with a satisfied feeling.

The perfect novel is not a genre novel. It should defy genres! Defy conventions! But still be easy to understand!

The perfect novel may require hard work, but not struggle. The writer will not spend three weeks carefully crafting a subplot about its main character’s stay in a creaky old apartment complex only to realize later that this was totally unnecessary, and weep as she cuts out these chapters and the four or five extra characters she created. No! The perfect novel will not require plotting. The writer will write and the plot will appear before her as she does so, the path lit just a little ways ahead of each step, not a hole in sight. The gun brandished at the beginning of the first act will go off with a bang in the third.

Moreover, the perfect novel will be so good, unmistakably good, that it will be picked up by a publisher within a few weeks of its second edit. (The edit only being necessary, of course, to catch a few stray commas or other minor punctuation errors.) How does the publisher hear about it? That’s a good question. Because surely the writer hasn’t spent years throwing other work out into the world, trying to get anyone to pay attention to her, or searching for an agent. The cynics among you might believe the writer has connections, but even if she does, so what? If it’s the perfect novel, who cares if there’s a little hypothetical cronyism going on here?

Because the perfect novel will not only be published in a blistering six months, it will also make the New York Times Best Seller List, be nominated and win any number of Big Name Awards, be translated into 50 languages, be optioned for film, be taught in college classes about The Perfect Novel, change the lives of everyone who ever reads it and stay in print for decades, nay centuries, nay for the entire remaining history of human literature, for as long as humans read, forever and ever, its objective and universally agreed-upon value as a work of art only growing with time. And before the last human with eyes to read or ears to hear shuffles off this mortal coil, they will make sure to put The Perfect Novel in a titanium box so anyone or anything who wants to know what the pinnacle of literary human achievement looks like they will be able to gaze upon it, weep with joy and rebuild the next civilization in Its image.

And who has time to accept Pulitzers and fly around the world doing script supervision? Yeesh, what a nightmare. There’s so much good TV right now! And if you still want to write a novel for some reason, but know it’s not going to be The Perfect Novel, what’s even the point? Give up now. You’re welcome.

How to Not Write a Novel, Part I

How Not to Write a Novel, Part 1: Never Say Goodbye

Of the many things I’ve accomplished in my writing career, I’ve been perhaps most consistent at not writing novels. When I was young I pictured adult me as a cross between Stephen King and Angela Lansbury’s character on Murder She Wrote, briskly tip-tapping away at a future bestseller while clad in a cozy sweater. The more rational among us know that childhood dreams are a terrible heading by which to chart one’s future course, because children have no idea what will actually make their adult self happy. What was I thinking success would look like? Autonomy? Wealth? Fame? Cozy sweaters? Bah. I have health insurance, only .00000000001% of writers become wealthy, I am terribly uncomfortable with fame and I own all the cozy sweaters I could ever want or need. I have successfully triumphed over my childhood dream, and it’s with this success in mind that I decided to share some of my secrets, in case you, like me, are similarly afflicted.

With the motivations of wealth and fame swept to one side, one well might say – “Wait, Linda, you actually have written at least one novel! You self-published it back in 2015! It’s still buried at the bottom of my bookshelf!” Um, okay, that is true. I wrote a mystery novel set in a small seaside town with a protagonist named Francisco Frank, aka Franky Frank. It was the first novel I ever finished, the year I turned 30. I have (grimaces) written two novels since then, as well as two children’s books. And they remain unread by anyone but a few close friends because I have a crippling case of perfectionism that makes me wince at the idea of putting anything out in the world to be judged. So I’d really like to be done trying to be a novelist, okay? I have a terrible demoralizing person person as a boss at this particular job (me) and every time I do something she tells me I’m not doing it good enough. Well enough? Doing a good enough job? Whatever, shut up, I’m trying to write a blog.

“But Linda,” you, my hypothetical reader says, “If you’ve known that actually having people read your novels makes you anxious since 2015, why did you keep writing? Why do you have six other novels you’ve gotten a third of the way through writing on your hard drive?”

So, first of all, stop snooping through my computer. And second of all, there’s an answer for that too. The truth is that I and many other people with this particular creative disability have busy, loud, crowded brains full of stories and characters, and sometimes they knock so loudly and persistently that the only way to shut them up is to put them on a page. You want to meet some of the people in there? Fine. Jeez. There’s a very pregnant detective. A woman who hoards lamps. A drunk on an important errand. A sculptor whose most famous work looks like a dog turd. Some of them have made it to the page, some of them are still sitting around, occasionally knocking at my conscience. And some of them are in the rear view mirror of my creative process, slowly getting smaller and less distinct as time, and I, move on.

Which brings me to today’s lesson – if you really don’t want to write a novel, or if you are writing a novel but don’t want to finish it and risk finding out you suck, one of the best things you can do is to never say goodbye to your characters and your ideas. Don’t kill your darlings. Leave those tabs open. Promise yourself you’ll get back to them someday. Let them get stale and distant and slowly perish through neglect. Don’t feel guilty, this serves an important purpose: As long as you have two or three or fourteen ideas that really deserve your attention or that you are definitely going to finish, you don’t have to move on with something else. And if you don’t move on, you don’t have to actually write a novel. Brilliant. It’s working for me, anyway.

Next time: How I failed at not writing a novel and wrote several novels, like a chump.

What I’m Writing: I’m revisiting a project I started a few years ago because one of the characters was inspired by a former neighbor of mine, “Rudy” Gilberto Jimenez Gonzalez. Some of you may know that Rudy was detained after a traffic stop in Wyoming and put in jail on an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hold. He has been in the United States since he was 14 years old. He has no criminal record. I don’t know him well, but when I was his neighbor he embodied what a good neighbor should be. He was friendly and generous and helpful and hard-working and kind. He was pulled over for a broken taillight and imprisoned because he had a California Driver’s License, not a REAL ID. He wasn’t carrying his papers. We are living in a country where good people people are taken away from their families because they aren’t carrying their papers. I want to say more but I am so angry and sad. Anyway, here’s a link to a fundraiser to help the family.

What I’m Reading: This newsletter was inspired by a piece I read on LinkedIn, of all places, by Bob Hutchins. In “We Don’t Say Goodbye Anymore, We Just Stay Reachable,” Hutchins writes about the weird grey edgeless state of constant connection modern technology has created. It reminded me of how I cried during the final shift of my first formative job, working as a desk clerk at a youth hostel in San Francisco. It was 2004 and most of us still had landlines. I knew that I would probably never see or hear from most of the people I worked with there. A few years later we were all on Facebook, which was thrilling but also weird. As Hutchins says, “we've swapped conversation for connection.” So be it friends, projects or plotlines, I’m exploring what it means to create meaning by closing some doors for good.

What I’m Doing: Painting my house! (Expect to see those words every week for the next few months. It’s a long process.) I did finally get some of the new color on there, probably a little more hastily than I should have but it felt good. Also enjoying Yard Sale Season. I actually scored some painting supplies from a neighbor down the street who is retired and said rather smugly that she will “never paint again.” SIGH. I did successfully procrastinate my way through an entire free weekend, finding other things to do until literally 3 p.m. on Sunday to start painting, but once I started working at it I found the process extremely meditative. I’m doing it by hand with a brush because my very active 80 something year old neighbor said it will last a lot longer and also because I just like to make things as hard as possible.